Ventura IV introduces a new ally for Marion and Rika, Lady Stillhaeven, wife of the Gallifreyan ambassador to Ventura proves to be a cut above all the snobs. She doesn’t mind that Marion is a foreigner or that Rika is a Caretaker. I have mentioned Ventura IV and the Gallifreyan residence there in a lot of stories. It first appeared in an Unfinished Business story in which the Ninth Doctor and Rose arrive there on the day that his mother died. Marion is destined to make one of her happiest homes in the residence. There is also a Theta Sigma story in which Chrístõ and Julia arrive there crossing Chrístõ’s timeline and visiting when his mother is alive and he is a small Gallifreyan boy of four living there with his family. Ventura is mentioned in passing in too many other stories to mention. I see Gallifrey as a place which would have embassies all over the galaxy, because they are so set on politics and procedure and that non-intervention policy of theirs that this kind of thing is inevitable.

I can’t quite remember why I chose to call the planet Ventura. It was certainly nothing to do with Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. It might possibly have had something to do with the Spanish holiday resort PortAventura. Obviously Ventura is a complete mis-spelling of the resort name, but I wanted to portray a place that was safe, refined, and easy going – unlike Gallifrey, which can be a hard place to live in sometimes.

The roses are an important motif. They will appear again in other stories.

The horse races were a way to introduce some entertainment and a bit of a thrill into the story. Kristoph and Rika in an amateur race, risking a crash, was the thrill. There is also a little backstory about one of Kristoph’s ancestors, the mysterious Mal Loup. In itself, this doesn’t really go anywhere except to suggest why Mal Loup is such bad French. It really only bears fruit in the Theta Sigma stories “Who Do You Think You Are” in which Chrístõ meets his forebears.